Department of Pharmacy, Jashore University of Science and Technology, Jashore 7408, Bangladesh.
School of Optometry and Vision Science, UNSW Medicine, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia.
Molecules. 2022 May 9;27(9):3036. doi: 10.3390/molecules27093036.
Cancer is a disorder that rigorously affects the human population worldwide. There is a steady demand for new remedies to both treat and prevent this life-threatening sickness due to toxicities, drug resistance and therapeutic failures in current conventional therapies. Researchers around the world are drawing their attention towards compounds of natural origin. For decades, human beings have been using the flora of the world as a source of cancer chemotherapeutic agents. Currently, clinically approved anticancer compounds are vincristine, vinblastine, taxanes, and podophyllotoxin, all of which come from natural sources. With the triumph of these compounds that have been developed into staple drug products for most cancer therapies, new technologies are now appearing to search for novel biomolecules with anticancer activities. Ellipticine, camptothecin, combretastatin, curcumin, homoharringtonine and others are plant derived bioactive phytocompounds with potential anticancer properties. Researchers have improved the field further through the use of advanced analytical chemistry and computational tools of analysis. The investigation of new strategies for administration such as nanotechnology may enable the development of the phytocompounds as drug products. These technologies have enhanced the anticancer potential of plant-derived drugs with the aim of site-directed drug delivery, enhanced bioavailability, and reduced toxicity. This review discusses mechanistic insights into anticancer compounds of natural origins and their structural activity relationships that make them targets for anticancer treatments.
癌症是一种严重影响全球人类的疾病。由于当前常规疗法中的毒性、耐药性和治疗失败，人们对治疗和预防这种危及生命的疾病的新疗法有稳定的需求。世界各地的研究人员都将注意力集中在天然来源的化合物上。几十年来，人类一直将世界上的植物作为癌症化疗药物的来源。目前，临床上批准的抗癌化合物有长春新碱、长春碱、紫杉烷和鬼臼毒素，它们都来自天然来源。随着这些已开发成为大多数癌症治疗标准药物的化合物的成功，新的技术现在正在出现，以寻找具有抗癌活性的新型生物分子。依匹斯汀、喜树碱、康普瑞汀、姜黄素、高三尖杉酯碱等都是具有潜在抗癌特性的植物来源的生物活性植物化合物。研究人员通过使用先进的分析化学和分析计算工具进一步改进了这一领域。对新的给药策略的研究，如纳米技术，可能使植物化合物能够作为药物产品开发。这些技术增强了植物来源药物的抗癌潜力，旨在实现靶向药物递送、提高生物利用度和降低毒性。本文综述了天然来源抗癌化合物的作用机制和构效关系，使它们成为抗癌治疗的靶点。
